Headsets are commonly used with many portable electronic devices such as portable media players and mobile phones. Headsets can include one or more cables as well as various non-cable components such as a jack, headphones, and/or a microphone. The one or more cables can interconnect the non-cable components. The headphones, which are the components that generate sound, can exist in different form factors such as over-the-ear headphones, in-the-ear earbuds, or in-the-canal earphones. In-the-ear earbuds are sometimes referred to as non-occluding earbuds as they generally sit at the entrance of the user's ear canal and do not form an airtight seal.
Generally speaking, with conventional non-occluding earbuds, the absence of an airtight seal can affect acoustic performance as compared to other types of headphones, such as occluding or in-the-canal earphones. However, some users are willing to trade some degree of sound quality for the comfort level offered by in-the-ear, non-occluding earbuds.
A primary concern or factor for headphone design is creating parts that adhere to design constraints dictated by the size and the shape of electronic components that provide the functionality for the headphones. For example, in-the-ear earbud housing design has largely been driven by the need to create a form for the earbud that accommodates both the size of the headphone driver and the circular shape of the headphone driver. Although designers devote considerable effort to making in-the-ear earbuds that accommodate the circular driver aesthetically pleasing, the design process has been primarily driven by design constraints dictated by the electronic components, thus making comfort less of a factor in the design process.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved methodology for determining a headphone form for earbuds, earphones and the like that is driven by both sound quality and comfort level.